Note to the reader: This game will be completed on the standard “Soldier” difficulty setting. Additional objectives, etc, may not be covered.

Welcome to the Corps!

As ever, take a second to get a feel for your controls. Fortunately they are pretty standard for a shooter, so nothing to think too hard about. Head into the airlock and down the tunnel when you’re ready.

Head into the ship, look around, move into the hangar, follow the directions. Along the way you’ll learn to use your motion detector, your flashlight, and your welder.

Follow the radar signal to a survivor, Keyes. That’ll lead to your first close encounter. The xenos like to run around, and are clever enough to get in behind you. If you don’t have your motion detector out, try to keep an ear open for them.

Once you’re done, return to Keyes for your next assignment. Standing with where he was to your left, move straight ahead to the video camera. Nearby you’ll see some armor to grab.

Follow Keyes and in the next room there will be, in fact, “movement all over the place!” Now you go from xenos stalking you to them flooding the room. The grenade launcher is rad, but if you don’t make a direct hit, it’s pretty much useless, so only use it if they’re approaching on a straight line or the odds of you hitting them are slim. You’ll be heading to your left and then up some stairs into the room with your objective. Keyes isn’t much good at killing them, sadly. Save bullets by running for your damn life, or save life by standing with your back to the wall and shooting.

In the next room, look to your right for ammo and armor. Head down the hall, around two corners, and follow Keyes. When you reach a T-junction, head for the left and let Keyes close the door. If you don’t, the bugs will just keep coming and you’ll eat up a lot of ammo.

In the next room you’ll defend Keyes with two other grunts while he opens the door. Near him look for ammo and armor, you’ll need it. In case you haven’t been following the directions on the screen, you can click the R stick to do an up-close kill. Trouble it, it’ll spray acid. It’ll kill a bug that’s right on top of you, but avoid it if you can.

Oh, sure, let’s head into a hole in the floor! Great idea. Clearly someone has never actually seen an Alien movie. Now you’re stuck with O’Neal. On the other side of the quarantine corridor, look for some armor on the other side. Check out the x-rays too, if you want to feel really uncomfortable.

Follow O’Neal and keep an eye out for a few items until you reach the gravity well. It’s the room with the big rotating doohickey in the center. You’ll come under attack. Cross to the far side and defend O’Neal while he opens the door. Around now, I ranked up by completing the first challenge assignment in the pause menu. Check out your pause menu for a weapon upgrade of your choice! The second one, Spray and Pray, for shooting five xenos from the hip, is super easy and will let you upgrade again quickly.

Enter the next room, kill a xeno, and look for a computer with an audio log right in front of you. Some loot is right past it.

Two more xenos will be in the next passage. On the next platform you’ll see some ammo, and right before you go through the next door back into the gravity well, look for dog tags on the counter. I’m going to stop pointing out ammo drops now, just look for blue highlights.

A handful of xenos will show up on your path around the well. Listen carefully, cuz this next bit matters. Enter the next door out of the well. Go up two flights of stairs, look for a health pack, and turn right there. Turn left into the next door for a full armor load and a Legendary Weapon, Hicks’ Shotgun. Awesome.

Go back the way you came, hang a right, and find the exit. Head out here and O’Neal will need cover while you open the door. Hicks’ shotty worked a treat for me here. Follow the halls into the cargo bay.

There’s a low space to your right when you enter, head across it and look to your right for stairs. The xenos will be pretty thick here, coming from largely up above you. Head across the catwalks and cover O’Neal while he gets the next door open. As soon as he’s in, follow and close the next door, cuz they WILL keep coming and you WILL get overwhelmed. There’s enough of them behind you that the shotgun will require reloading too often unless you’re very accurate.

Get your breath while the xenos crawl over the window, and then flush them out. And that, finally, gets you to the end of your first mission. And, hopefully, a lot of XP and some sweet-ass upgrades.

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